An important component in fertilizers is nitrogen. Nitrogen can be obtained from natural sources or synthetic sources. The most common natural nitrogen source for fertilizers is manure. This is disfavored for a number of reasons including for example sanitary and aesthetic reasons and difficulties related to obtaining and transporting sufficient volumes of plant-available nitrogen. There are some other natural sources, including, for example fish emulsion; however, these sources are not capable of scaling up sufficiently for commercial applications. As a result, synthetic fertilizers containing synthetic nitrogen are more common. The most common production method for synthetic nitrogen for fertilizer is the Haber-Bosch reaction. Unfortunately, the Haber-Bosh reaction takes a significant amount of energy and thus is disfavored for environmental reasons.
Thus, synthetic fertilizers are becoming disfavored from an environmental perspective. It is desirable to replace synthetic fertilizers for sustainability reasons. In particular, significant energy is consumed to produce synthetic fertilizers, which could be reduced. Furthermore, there is desire to replace some synthetic materials included in synthetic fertilizer with naturally produced bio-renewable ingredients.
Accordingly, it is an objective of the claimed invention to provide nitrogen for fertilizer that comes from a natural source.
A further objective of the claimed invention is to provide a natural based fertilizer that is both biodegradable and is produced by using environmentally sustainable energy.
Yet another object of the invention is to provide an alternative to the current sources of nitrogen and fertilizer.
Other objects, advantages, and features of the present invention will become apparent from the following specification taken in conjunction with the accompanying figures.
While multiple embodiments are disclosed, still other embodiments of the present invention will become apparent to those skilled in the art from the following detailed description, which shows and describes illustrative embodiments of the invention. Accordingly, the drawings and detailed description are to be regarded as illustrative in nature and not restrictive.